Glimpses from Human evolution

It’s actually been raining for 5 days and I have a bad case of foot ache. Are the two related ? How am I to know … I am just a goddamn accountant and not a good one at that. Much reviled as accountants/book keepers/bean counters may be … they have played a hard to ignore role in world history and even more stellar role in evolution. Starting with evolution, dunno how the scientists missed us out, but my wide research tells me that it was the Accountantis Humanis that acted as the crucial bridge between our tree loving ancestors and land bound forefathers. The crucial decision to move to land was taken on 17 August 17263 BC, excerpts from the momentous occasion –
Two Accountatis Humanis (AH1 and AH2) sit on top of tree staring at the ground below –
AH 1 - Hey, That yellow thingy down there looks like shit.
AH 2 – I certify
AH 1 – Lets get down and look closer (and makes the earth shaking move to … well … earth)
AH 2 – I certify
AH 1 – Hey, That yellow thingy continues to look like shit.
AH 2 – I certify
AH 1 – Hey, This yellow thingy smells like shit
AH 2 – I certify
AH 1 – Hey, this yellow thingy feels like shit,
AH 2 – I certify
AH 1 – Hey, this yellow thingy tastes like shit.
AH 2 – I certify
AH 1 – Hey, this yellow thingy must be shit.
AH 2 – I certify

The above incident resulted in 2 things. Humans as a species decided to move to land and they appointed accountants to deal with shit. While sub sub species started by AH1 had to handle all the drudgery, sub sub species sired by AH 2 made lots of money. One of the closely held secrets of the accountant sub species has been the way we procreate. For we have to deal with 2 constants –
1) The males of the sub species are known to repel women … in extreme cases women are known to sense the presence of an accountant 5 km away and flee in terror.
2) Even where a bold reckless few venture anywhere near us, we either stare at them tongue tied or worse still behave like ourselves. That is usually sufficient to send them packing.
If you think I am gonna tell you how we procreate, perish the thought …. This is not a porn blog and I don’t want the venerable institute* to come down on me like a ton of bricks. Next I will deal with the role we played in world/alien history and my foot continues to ache and it continues to rain.

* - oh yeah, we sub species do have an institute of our own that well …. Churns out more of our unique kind and keeps making and unmaking strange rules.

Rain and some other stuff

It rained today. So what u may ask …. It rained for the first time in the month of April in more than 250 years… I am getting really good at making up stuff like this!! Fact is that we have been in the grip of almost a heat wave (almost as we, chennaites call a heat wave a heat wave only when the temperature touches 40 celsius ..with temperature stubbornly hovering in the 39 mark …. This falls in the almost a heat wave category.) for the last 10 days. In fact 5 died (2 dogs and 3 cats) when it rained … no not because of the rain but because of the shock of it raining.

Another thing that struck me as very strange was the obsession of the western media with the life/death of one single woman. …. Terri Schiavo. I don’t intend to provoke by going into the rights and wrongs and god knows what else of the whole thing …. The media has done an admirable and hard to replicate job in that respect. What I found rather strange was … why the hullabaloo over a single human life and an invalid one at that. I mean, in India we have people dying lrc and guess what …. We don’t give a damn. We have perfectly healthy men, women and children reaching their maker everyday due to every thing from derailed trains to unseasonal rains to drains left open. And do we give a damn …. Nope. This could mean either –
1) The lives of perfectly healthy individuals are much more expendable than an invalid person, just because the former were born in a third world country.
Or
2) We have become so inured to the daily tales of death and injury that we have stopped valuing human life.

Both of the above are too terrible to contemplate.

Adventure in Triplicane

Pretty exhausting day ..... legging it through the city in search of a book on SAP-FI/CO module. Could not get it in any of the big book shops that seem to have everything except... well... books. So decided to venture into the Old City that abounds in second hand stuff. Got interesting responses from the vendors ..... from a straight "No" to "We had it, yesterday" (so what??) to "What is SAP ?" to "Do you want a book on Gynecology?"(dunno what prompted that one) to "SAP is no longer hot ... suggest you change your line" (WTF ....)

In fact got to check out some very interesting titles ...... "The Ultimate Sin" (surprising it was not what I thought it would be) ... "Expert's guide to thermodyanamics" (why wud an expert need a guide ?) ..."Susan's Family Portraits". In the last case it was the blurb that caught my attention - "A tale of wanton lust and forbidden desire", wonder how that is linked with Susan's family pics !!

In other words I did not get the book I wanted. :)

Operation "Delete"

Back after a long time. Its been pretty hectic at workplace. Read somewhere that true friends are those who survive from one address book to another. Thought nothing much of it at that time... discovered how true it was yesterday. As I searched for a particular number on my mobile, I was struck by the number of contact numbers I had accumulated.... everything from the number of my dentist to that of my pretty former colleague with whom i always intended to stay in touch, only that it remained an intention..... this set off - Operation "Deletion". The criterion I set for retention of the number were -

1) Did I really want to keep in touch with the person ? (that sent the number of my former colleague into oblivion)
2) Would the number be useful in the near/medium term ?

End of the day, I discovered that I had got rid of nearly 95% of the phone numbers, with the remaining 5% being evenly divided between criteria 1 and 2.

Guess, it does reflect something about me, just that I dont know what it means .... or may be I dont want to know !?!